One of the essential Italian works of last century, this emotionally taut drama with elements of neorealism portrays the lives of the five Parondi brothers, who move with their mother from the poor south to industrial Milan. This recently restored picture, which had a fundamental influence on the early films of Scorsese and Coppola, brings stunning performances from Alain Delon, Annie Girardot and Renato Salvatori.

Synopsis

The golden Sixties didn’t begin badly at all for Italy. While Federico Fellini took the Palme d’Or at Cannes in 1960 for La dolce vita, his equally famous colleague Luchino Visconti was firming up his opus magnum Rocco and His Brothers for its premiere at Venice. This brilliant, emotionally taut drama, with its organically blended elements of neorealism, focuses its attention on the Parondi family; after the death of the father, they leave their native Lucania in the poor Italian south for the industrial, vibrant hub of Milan, where the oldest sibling Vincenzo has settled in to wait for his mother and four brothers Simone, Rocco, Ciro and Luca. As if the enticements and snares of the alien northern metropolis weren’t enough to test familial solidarity, the boys then make the acquaintance of Nadia, the coquettish girl of loose morals from next door. The film, which drew the eye of the censors and, over a decade later, had a fundamental influence on the early work of Scorsese and Coppola, boasts a glittering cast featuring Annie Girardot, Renato Salvatori, and Alain Delon as the supremely humble idealist Rocco.

Karel Och

About the director

Luchino Visconti di Modrone (1906, Milan – 1976, Rome), stage and film director and scriptwriter, descendant of an ancient noble line with strong left-wing sympathies. He worked as assistant to Jean Renoir. His first film Obsession (Ossessione, 1942), a loose adaptation of James M. Cain’s novel The Postman Always Rings Twice, launched the Neorealist movement. Subsequent unforgettable works such as The Earth Trembles (La terra trema, 1947), Rocco and His Brothers (Rocco e i suoi fratelli, 1960), The Leopard (Il gattopardo, 1963) and Death in Venice (Morte a Venezia, 1971) placed him alongside seminal filmmakers of the 20th century. His entire oeuvre, with its tendency towards aestheticism, formal sophistication and scenographic perfection, interweaves the themes of love and death, and depicts the decay of the old society and the decline of its institutions and values.